Achievement in Mathematics Content Domains

Exhibits 3.1 and 3.2 present achievement results for the TIMSS mathematics content domains—number, geometric shapes and measures, and data display at fourth grade, and number, algebra, geometry, and data and chance at eighth grade. To examine relative performance in the content domains, TIMSS used IRT scaling to place achievement in each of the content domains on the TIMSS mathematics achievement scales for fourth grade and eighth grade, respectively. The average scale score for each content domain is shown, together with the difference between mathematics achievement overall and achievement in the content domain. Up and down arrows are used to indicate whether a country’s average content domain score is significantly higher or lower than its overall mathematics average score.

Generally, the highest performing countries overall had the highest achievement in the content domains, and lower performing countries had lower achievement in the content domains. However, each country demonstrated one or two relative strengths and one or two relative weaknesses in comparison to its overall achievement.